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The Oscar-winning composer of the schmaltzy hit “You Light Up My Life” raped 11 young women he lured to his apartment with Craigslist ads promising to turn them into stars, authorities charged yesterday.

Joseph Brooks, 71 — who traded on his fame from the 1977 Academy Award for Best Song — convinced his victims to take off their clothes on his personal casting couch, and when they needed an extra push, pulled out his Oscar and put it in their hands, police said.

“This could be you. This could be you holding the Oscar. I could make you a star,” NYPD Lt. Adam Lamboy of the Manhattan Special Victims Squad quoted Brooks as saying.

Authorities said he had his 42-year-old female personal assistant, Shawni Lucier, from Washington state, help him choose his victims.

“We are looking to have someone who we want to turn into a star,” his ads said, according to Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Lisa Friel.

The ads — posted on Craigslist and talent sites — said an “Oscar award-winning composer” was looking for a “new face,” a “young girl between 18 and 22″ who is beautiful, but did not mention Brooks by name.

He turned himself in to police yesterday to face 82 counts of rape, sexual assault and many other charges. He pleaded not guilty and was released on $500,000 bond.

One of his accusers — a 24-year-old student who lives in Brooklyn and spoke on condition of anonymity — said she was happy that Brooks might finally face justice.

“If he were put in jail for the rest of his life, I’d be happy,” she said. “I just don’t want to see this happen to any other girl. He is just a very sick old man on a power trip.”

Brooks primarily targeted victims from Washington state and Oregon — including former “American Idol” contestant Loretta Spruell, of Seattle — so they would be tired from traveling by the time they arrived in New York, authorities said. He allegedly hoped that would leave them without the energy to put up a fight.

The assaults occurred between 2005 and 2008, and many of the naive victims were as young as 18, prosecutors said.

When the women replied to the ads, the washed-up songwriter had Lucier contact them and knowingly help “pick out the victims,” prosecutors said.

“She set up their travel arrangements. She assured them there was a real project going on. Some of them she actually drove to the apartment,” Friel said.

“Some of them said she was actually in the apartment to make them feel comfortable at the beginning, and she would leave by the time the sexual attack would occur.”

Lucier is scheduled to turn herself in next week to face nine counts of criminal facilitation.

She did not return a call for comment or answer knocks on her door.

Once Brooks had his prey inside his apartment, he used the oldest trick in the book, cops said. He allegedly told the women they were trying out for the role of a prostitute, and the scene they were depicting involved drinking glasses of wine “repeatedly and quickly.”

“The part called for them to drink the wine in a seductive manner,” Lamboy said. “He told them to be very comfortable with their bodies, to drink the wine and feel sexy about themselves as they became more and more intoxicated.”

Brooks then turned into a monster, urging them to take off their clothes and ultimately forcing himself on them, authorities said.

“He intimidated them. They were frightened and suddenly found themselves in his apartment for different purposes then they had anticipated,” said Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau.

Investigators were alerted to the alleged ploy in March 2008 when a victim came forward — the first woman Brooks met on an audition in 2005 and invited back to his home.

He lured a second victim in 2007 via a talent Web site, but found his most successful method by posting on Craigslist, through which he ensnared nine other victims in early 2008, police said.

In April 2008, he suffered a debilitating stroke, but still kept up his lecherous ways, prosecutors said.

Two female trainers at a gym where he was receiving physical therapy requested not to work with him because of “unwanted attention” he allegedly directed their way.

As the investigation picked up, one of his alleged victims filed a civil suit that prompted several others to come forward.

Investigators believe there are more. One woman claimed Brooks raped her in 1970, but could not press charges due to the statute of limitations.

“We have some records from his computer . . . evidence of people we didn’t know about yet, other people that had interviewed for jobs, e-mails suggesting that something had gone wrong during their audition as well,” Friel said.

Among the computer evidence police discovered was an e-mail from Brooks’ son this past Jan. 14, in which he told his father “this type of predatory behavior disgusts him,” prosecutors said.

“At the end of the e-mail, the son writes, ‘You made your bed and now you must sleep in it.’ He wants nothing more to do with his father,” Assistant DA Maxine Rosenthal said in court.

After the arraignment, during which the frail-looking Brooks held his head in his hands and slumped in his chair, his lawyer called the charges “ridiculous.”

“It shows nine incidents starting in March and into April of ’08. Out of his whole lifetime, in eight weeks, six weeks, he supposedly committed all these crimes,” Jeffrey Hoffman said. “Knowing he didn’t do it, he has full confidence in the justice system.”